


nail house

by powerandpathos



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Alternative Universe - Mafia, Blow Jobs, Chinese Triad, Driver!Mo Guanshan, He Tian never moves out, M/M, TW Explosions, The boys never become friends in school
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24436483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos
Summary: ‘God,’ Guan Shan mutters. He pushes himself up onto his elbows. His thighs are still trembling, and he rolls his ankles. ‘You fuckin’ love control, don’t you?’He Tian sits back on his haunches. ‘Have you seen my family?’‘I don’t wanna talk about your family right now.’ Guan Shan huffs. ‘Bet you can’t fuckin’ stand that I have to drive you about, right?’‘I got used to it. It’s a shame the car isn’t a manual. I’ve enjoyed seeing your hand around the gear stick.’[Request: Triad AU/Driver!Guan Shan]
Relationships: He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Implied He Cheng/Qiu
Comments: 24
Kudos: 412





	nail house

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to [Merlin](https://beautifulboysbeingbusy.tumblr.com/) for requesting this work from me. It was an absolute thrill to write. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe! My sincere thanks also to Asa for reviewing this for me! If you would like to have a fic written for you, please [visit my Tumblr](http://agapaic.tumblr.com) to see how!

A nail house, or _dingzihu_ (钉子户) is a home where the owner, often referred to as a ‘stubborn nail’, refuses to accept compensation from a property developer for its demolition, typically in protest against forced urbanisation. Often, the demolition/development project will proceed around the building, while leaving the property house alone, sticking out like a nail.

* * *

The hotel costs four thousand yuan a night for a window with a view, and a suite is double. The Hes have a penthouse apartment reserved for when the family is in Shanghai, and the youngest son is a regular night-time occupant. Guan Shan has stopped wondering at the cost of it. The day is overcast, and they haven’t had blue skies for a week or two; He Tian walks through the hotel lobby wearing sunglasses, and starts to light up a cigarette.

It takes him a moment: there is his car, in the forecourt—and there is Guan Shan, waiting beside the passenger door. Guan Shan has the second set of keys in his palm.

‘What’s this?’ says He Tian, wandering over. His smile twists sharply in assessment. He’s taller than Guan Shan remembers from school—not as broad. In He Tian’s long, languid limbs, there is a touch of elegance that throws him. ‘You want a photo? It’s a nice car.’

Guan Shan presses his lips together. He Tian doesn’t know who he is. _Asshole._

‘I’m here to take you home,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Your brother hired me.’

‘I don’t need a babysitter.’

‘I’m not a fuckin’—I’m a driver.’ He gestures to himself: white shirt, dark trousers, the black tie he last wore to a funeral, the only pair of dress shoes he owns and which he buffed to a sheen that morning at 5am. ‘I drive.’

He Tian ignores him. He throws the unlit cigarette to the floor, and plucks the keys from Guan Shan’s close-fisted hand. With a click of the keys and a blip of the alarm, the doors slide upwards, and He Tian sets himself down in the driver’s seat and begins to buckle up the cross-body seatbelt. His long legs fold neatly into the small space; he adjusts the wing mirror.

 _He’s gonna drive off,_ Guan Shan realises suddenly. _He’s gonna leave me here._

He moves quickly, and climbs awkwardly into the passenger’s seat. The doors begin to close before Guan Shan can swing his legs around, and he fumbles with the buckle. The car is a prototype, and He Tian has totalled three in two years. There isn’t much space between them; Guan Shan can smell He Tian’s sour breath (tequila?), and the stale smell of an unwashed body after sex stings his nostrils. There’s lipstick on the collar of He Tian’s shirt, which is funny to Guan Shan. The caricature of the Hes’ youngest son is now complete.

The doors seal shut, and the engine rumbles to life. The car moves with the sharp, jerking movements that Guan Shan remembers only from driving a go-kart when he was a kid, racing along a track in an old industrial warehouse somewhere out of the city. His knees knock together as He Tian steers the car out of the hotel parking lot and onto the street, and the familiarness of the city becomes a blur from the passenger seat. Guan Shan looks at his kneecaps, where the fabric of his trousers is vibrating from the power of the engine.

‘He wants you back at the house,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Your brother. I’m supposed to take you there. He’s payin’ me for it.’

Behind the sunglasses, He Tian glances at him. ‘What he doesn’t know won’t kill him.’

‘He doesn’t agree with your lifestyle,’ Guan Shan guesses. The hiring process had been short: a criminal record check, a few questions about his CV, his work ethic. They’d stood under a grey sky around the back of the house; Guan Shan didn’t need a tour. He Cheng had spent a long moment simply looking at him.

‘He doesn’t agree with a lot of things,’ He Tian says. He rubs a hand against his forehead, and then says, ‘I recognise you. Maybe it’s the hair, or…’

‘Or?’

‘The constipated look.’

Guan Shan glowers. ‘I’m not exactly _happy_ about this situation, either.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing working for a family like _mine?’_ He Tian asks, laughing. He finds this whole thing very funny. Guan Shan thinks he’s still drunk. He smells it, and Guan Shan hasn’t seen his pupils yet. Guan Shan goes quiet, fantasising about what the fuck he’ll tell an officer if they’re stopped, and after a minute He Tian says, ‘Got it.’ He thumps the heel of his palm against the steering wheel. ‘We were in school together, weren’t we? Mo… Mo-something, right?’

‘Mo Guan Shan,’ Guan Shan mumbles.

‘That’s it!’ He Tian shakes his head, and taps on the indicator. The car slides off one of the main city streets and heads towards the expressway, which will take them east out of the city and up towards the rural terrains where the Hes have built their home in the foothills of the mountains. ‘Fuck, I thought I was losing my mind.’

‘My ma used to clean your house.’ Guan Shan points. ‘There’s a set of lights up ahead.’

‘My brother’s house,’ He Tian corrects mindlessly, and then stops. ‘Huh,’ he says, not easing on the accelerator. ‘Did she? I don’t think I knew that.’

‘Three times a week. Sometimes I’d wait in the car.’ He says, because He Tian hasn’t slowed down, ‘The light’s red.’

‘I’d remember that. I’d remember you.’

‘Apparently you wouldn’t. Red light.’

He Tian is looking at him intently now. He hasn’t looked at the road for a few moments, and instead scrutinises Guan Shan’s face as if waiting for it to procure some long-forgotten memory for him. What would it prove? Guan Shan doesn’t know why it’s a big deal. Sure, there’s the sticky revelation that Guan Shan’s family has always filled some position of servitude for the Hes, but really—

His hands shoot out in front of him. ‘Fuckin’ _stop!’_ he cries.

He Tian slams on the brakes.

They’re thrown forwards like ragdolls, hard enough to bruise against the seatbelts. Tyres squeal against the tarmac, skidding wildly for a few seconds, before the car lurches to an eventual stop. Guan Shan feels his lungs filling sorely against the inside of his ribcage. Smoke and the tang of burnt rubber soaks the air, as if a fire has been suddenly doused with a bucket of water.

Guan Shan’s heart is trying to jump up through his throat; coppery blood fills his mouth where his incisors catch on his tongue. He Tian has gone pale, like he might be sick.

The light goes amber, then green. For a moment, nothing happens, and then—

‘Get out,’ says Guan Shan, breathing in slowly through his nose. ‘Get out. I’m drivin’.’

They switch seats without another word. People waiting behind them press down on their car horns, then veer angrily around them until the lights go back to red. Guan Shan flips them off—so does He Tian. They each buckle themselves back in, and Guan Shan adjusts the seat slightly. After a minute, they’re pulling away again, and Guan Shan is careful not to press too hard on the accelerator. He drives, white-knuckled, the last hour to the Hes’ house, and He Tian is silent for the rest of the drive.

***

‘This is a fucking joke,’ He Tian tells his brother in their kitchen. ‘This is a joke, right?’

‘It’s for your own good.’

‘A babysitter? Are you for fucking real?’

He Cheng, sitting at the long kitchen table, puts a spoonful of sugar into his coffee. There’s a man leaning against the counters behind him. He has white hair and a mean, familiar look about him. They both wear suits, which has the effect of making Guan Shan feel like he’s standing in a well-stocked office.

‘He’s a driver,’ says He Cheng, referring to Guan Shan, who has been standing beside the kitchen door for five minutes and has yet to say a word. ‘He’ll take you where you need to go, and I won’t need to worry about you wrapping your neck around a tree. Maybe you’ll start to put a bit more thought into your whereabouts the next time you want to take a stripper back to the Oriental.’

‘She was a diplomat’s daughter.’

He Cheng’s silence says, _Aren’t they the same thing?_

‘Whose idea was this?’ He Tian asks. ‘Father’s?’ He turns to the white-haired man, who is standing in silence like a loyal dog. _‘Yours?’_

‘It was mine,’ He Cheng cuts in, before the man can say anything. Guan Shan has seen him before, but doesn’t remember his name. ‘You’ve listened to nothing I’ve said this year, and I’m setting a condition in place.’ On the table, there’s a bowl of congee to his left, and a plate of _youtiao_ that are still steaming and appear untouched. He Cheng takes a bite of his crépe, filled with fried vegetables diced minutely, and then he reaches for a dumpling. Guan Shan’s mouth waters—it looks exquisite.

A quiet moment, filled only with the sound of He Cheng chewing, and the white-haired man drinking his mug of coffee. He Tian seems to be in the stage of his hangover where he’s both outrageously angry and too sick to do anything about it.

Eventually He Cheng leans back, and wipes his hands in a cloth napkin in his lap. He says, ‘You’ve got a fondness for ruining my cars, and Mo Guan Shan is cheaper than a new lamborghini.’

‘I don’t give a shit about your cars.’

‘Maybe you can give a shit about a person.’

The retort takes He Tian by surprise that evolves quickly into derision, and then he turns for the door. For a moment, Guan Shan thinks their shoulders will collide, but He Tian only pauses to twist his torso, glances at him once, as if he might say something, and leaves.

He Cheng drinks his coffee. When he settles it down, a bead of liquid spills over the rim of the cup. He Cheng catches it before it stains the table. He Cheng doesn’t look at people: he stares. When his eyes flick up, he’s staring at Guan Shan—both men are.

‘Forgive me for placing a value on you,’ says He Cheng evenly. ‘You’re not a car. Sometimes my brother understands things when they're placed at his level.’

‘Maybe if you stopped treatin’ him like a kid…’ Guan Shan begins to venture, and then thinks better of it. The white-haired man has an eyebrow raised, as if he’d very much like to hear the rest of what Guan Shan has to say, but the invitation isn’t warm. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Guan Shan finishes with instead. ‘This is a job. You don’t need to explain shit to me.’

‘Some things are better left unsaid,’ says He Cheng ambiguously. ‘You’ll have a call when you’re needed next. It would be easier if you took the room we offered instead of driving out from the city each time.’

‘I’m good,’ says Guan Shan. ‘I live with my ma, and…’ He shrugs. ‘I’m good.’

***

Guan Shan fills the car with more fuel in two months than he has ever bought in his whole life. His expenses are covered two-fold, and he’s paid in cash at the end of the week in a small, well-padded envelope. He accompanies He Tian most places: to shopping centres and brunch dates, to personal training classes and dermatology appointments, and later to evening drinks with people Guan Shan doesn’t remember from school in the adjoining bars of expensive hotels.

He waits in the lobby when He Tian follows one figure or another into the elevator and up to a room, and spends more than three nights sleeping in the car until dawn. The rest, he works the nightshift at a 24/7 dim sum joint on Linfen Road, spooning noodle soup into bowls and wiping up the oily splatters. In the mornings, he fixes his tie, combs his fingers through his hair, and wipes the drool from his cheek with his knuckles. There is a thin, red line along his jaw from the imprint of the seatbelt. He Tian tells him he could come up one night, if he wanted, and Guan Shan declines with a ferocity that now seems unnecessary. _Suit yourself,_ He Tian had said with a grin, and left it at that.

At some point, Guan Shan becomes determined that He Tian makes him take him places for the sheer hell of it. Guan Shan remembers him at school: smart, good at basketball, charming to the teachers, affectionate with his peers, all of whom gravitated towards him in hopeful, fearful orbit. Maybe it was his family name that stopped anyone from sticking around—maybe it was his wealth. Guan Shan also comes to learn that He Tian has an obscene amount of it, and yet no freedom, and even littler responsibility. Sex and alcohol are easy alternatives to being around his brother and the house, and his exhausting social events with old friends only serve to prove that, in fact, he has none.

‘You’re keeping him accountable,’ He Cheng tells him on a Sunday night, handing over his wages. ‘He needs that kind of perspective.’

‘I think you’ve got some false assumptions of me,’ Guan Shan tells him quietly, taking the cash. ‘I’m just drivin’ him where he wants to go. I’m not his therapist.’

‘You’re not,’ He Cheng agrees. With little emotion, he adds: ‘But you’re also not going to fall in love with him.’

This strikes Guan Shan as hilarious, and he thinks about it for the rest of the week.

He Tian’s compulsively lonely, and Guan Shan doesn’t give a flying fuck about it. _His_ loneliness never ends in a ten-thousand yuan bar tab at the end of a weeknight. He spends his nights, instead, sleeping at any given moment, and watching old reruns of _Nirvana in Fire_ on the sofa of their seven-hundred-square-foot apartment with his mother until he passes out. When he waits in the car, he watches playlists of cooking videos on Tencent and tries to teach himself Spanish; at the estate he lingers against a wall and watches the domestic politics play around him with disinterest, and practices a routine of wry gratitude, thankful that it’s just him and his ma.

‘You’re lucky,’ He Tian tells him on an early-morning drive back to the estate. His eyes are bloodshot and his skin has taken on an unhealthy pallor. The sun is still rising over the tarmac of the expressway. Guan Shan knows the route by heart now. He checks his mirrors.

‘Lucky?’ he asks, feeling tired. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘You get to go home at the end of this.’

Guan Shan drags a thumbnail along the angle of his jaw, and then his hand drops back to the steering wheel. Again, he checks his mirrors.

‘Turning’s comin’ up,’ he says. ‘You want me to take it?’

‘What’s the alternative?’

‘Not takin’ it.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then we run outta road.’ Guan Shan pats his jacket pocket, heavy with this week’s wages. ‘Could give you this, and you could get a bus or train anywhere you wanted.’

‘You’d do that for me?’

Guan Shan’s look is all pity. ‘Figure you need it more than me.’

He Tian rolls his head against the headrest, back and forth, back and forth. ‘Hm,’ he says.

‘Last chance,’ Guan Shan says, flicking on his indicator for the turning. ‘Thirty feet.’

The turning approaches, and Guan Shan begins to slow down. He glances at He Tian, who has his eyes shut. Time’s up. Guan Shan pulls down the steering wheel to come off the expressway, and He Tian lets out a small sigh. They sit in silence for a few minutes, just the engine prowling, and He Tian is the first to break it.

‘When I was fourteen, my uncle asked if I wanted to go live at his place. He’s got an apartment in the city he only uses once a year. I’m still asking myself why the hell I didn’t take him up on it.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

He Tian huffs. ‘Guess I thought I’d be lonely. Go figure, huh?’ He Tian smiles while Guan Shan thinks, _People who are really lonely don’t actually admit it,_ but then he has to wonder if he’s got it wrong, and he’s just being cruel. When Guan Shan only presses his lips more firmly together, He Tian says, ‘Thanks for the offer, by the way. That was nice of you.’

Guan Shan frowns. ‘I’m not nice.’

‘That’s alright,’ says He Tian, grinning shark-like. ‘Neither am I.’

***

He catches his mother’s eye in the mirror, where she stands peering through the gap of his bedroom door. He’s dressing for work, still savouring the feeling of clean skin, a hot shower, freshly laundered clothes. It’s 5.27am, and He Tian texted him twenty minutes ago for an early-morning pick-up.

‘You look handsome,’ his ma says.

Guan Shan sighs, motions her in. She sits herself down on the edge of his bed, and settles a stack of neatly folded towels besider her. He hadn’t heard her come in; she’s still wearing her lanyard from the hospital around her neck and smells, faintly, of disinfectant and chalky latex. Her knuckles are perpetually cracked; her auburn hair is greying at the temples. She’ll be sixty in a few years.

 _I’m getting old,_ she likes to say, fretting at her newly lined skin, and he reminds her, with fond exasperation, that she’s only getting older.

‘Been wearin’ the same thing for weeks, Ma,’ he tells her now, knotting his tie in the mirror. ‘Not much has changed.’

‘You look like you’ve had sleep,’ she remarks, correcting herself.

‘Right.’

He holds her gaze in the mirror for a few moments, and then turns it on himself, assessing and critical. He sees his suit, pressed free of wrinkles, his cleanly shaven jaw, and the clearness of his rust-brown eyes, usually rheumy with too many late nights and a sore back from the driver’s seat that doesn’t quite lie flat. For the first time in a while, he’s well-rested, well-fed, and has money leftover in his bank account at the end of the month. It makes him nervous.

These past few weeks, He Tian has called him only once for a late-night pick-up. At first, Guan Shan had started to wonder if he was driving himself, growing bored with the routine and disobeying his brother’s orders on impulse. Now, Guan Shan wonders if it’s something else. When he asks He Cheng about it, He Cheng confirms that no, He Tian’s not going anywhere at night, then gives Guan Shan a long look that he doesn’t like being on the end of.

‘It must be doing you some good,’ his ma says. ‘This job. I was worried at first, you know.’

Guan Shan shrugs. ‘It’s alright.’

She smiles, stifling a yawn. ‘Good honest work,’ she says, and gets back to her feet, as if she’s had her fill and is now ready for bed. ‘That’s all you needed.’ She kisses her fingertips, touches them to Guan Shan’s shoulder, and walks out with the stack of towels tucked against her hip.

***

‘You gonna tell me where I’m goin’ yet?’

He Tian, languid in the passenger seat, arms folded loosely, smiles. ‘Just keep going,’ he instructs. ‘I’ll tell you when we get there.’

‘Some notice would be nice.’

‘And you’ll get it.’ He Tian _tsks._ ‘Don’t you trust me?’

Their gazes slide to each other's, hold for a moment, and then fall away. Guan Shan shakes his head. The sun is splintering light onto the windscreen, and he squints into the haze while he drives and knocks down his visor. It’s nearly 7am, and the roads are starting to fill as they head into the city.

‘You’re dressed up,’ says Guan Shan eventually. He Tian is wearing dark trousers and dress shoes, and a paisley shirt open at the collar. He smells clean, only lightly of cigarettes, and Guan Shan can smell the citrus tang of his aftershave. ‘Bit early for that, isn’t it?’

He Tian makes a _heh_ sound. ‘Haven’t done that in a while,’ he replies. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’

‘Not really.’

‘Liar,’ says He Tian. He shrugs. ‘Today’s different—I’m following He Cheng’s orders. All business.’

_And no pleasure._

After a moment Guan Shan asks, ‘Why haven’t you? Not that I give a fuck.’

‘I suppose there’ve been other things on my mind.’ He says this with one of his long side glances, which he gives Guan Shan a lot. Guan Shan is grateful for the dynamic in which most of their conversations take place: they can’t touch, can’t really _look_ at each other. They’re separated by a cupholder and the automatic gear stick, and the dark horizon of the expressway prevents Guan Shan from meeting He Tian’s gaze for any particular length of time.

When they hit the main road heading into the city, He Tian gives him clear instructions that leads them to an underground parking lot Guan Shan isn’t familiar with. He parks the car on one of the still-empty higher levels for this time of morning, a parking ticket pressed between his lips while he pulls down carefully on the steering wheel, and He Tian inclines his head as he puts on the handbrake.

 _Come on,_ it says. _You’re coming with._

Guan Shan sighs. He pockets the ticket, locking the car, and they walk down a stairwell to the street below, which smells of piss and stale beer and stops Guan Shan from touching the handrail.

From the street, they walk five minutes into the Tianzifang district, a labyrinth of old-school _shikumen_ houses transformed into studios and yoga hubs and cafés with newly-installed glass doors. The alleyways are narrow and absent of cars; bicycles are chained to fences, and ivy plants and palm trees spill over the roofs of terraced buildings and towards the street like aborted rain water. There are banners tied to lamposts down one alley, advertising an exhibition at a local ceramics studio in two weeks’ time, the red ink of the poster catching Guan Shan’s eye. He thinks briefly about him and He Tian going together.

‘This is the place,’ says He Tian, and Guan Shan comes to a stop.

It’s a vegetarian café, not unlike many of the others that now fill the district, a little bougie and a good spot for an Instagram photo. Inside, it’s bright, clean, and furnished in neutral colours. Long wooden benches without backs fill most of the space, and there are no menus except for the board behind the counter.

There are only a few customers so far, dressed in suits and waiting at the end of the counter where a small sign hangs from the ceiling on a metal chain and reads ‘To-Go’. Guan Shan lets the door fall shut behind him and hopes they have strong coffee.

‘I’ll grab a drink and head off.’ He starts to say, ‘Just call me when you’re done,’ and then looks down. He Tian has a hand around his wrist, the touch loose. He’s smiling, a pleased venture.

‘Thought we’d have breakfast together.’

Guan Shan stares at him, and reconsiders the hold on his wrist, the touch of skin-on-skin. ‘You… made me pick you up at 6am so we could have breakfast in the city together? Are you serious?’

‘I have errands to run after for He Cheng.’ He tugs on Guan Shan’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s order.’

Guan Shan holds his ground. ‘I work for you,’ he says quietly, insistently. ‘I’m not—This isn’t—’

‘We can still eat together. Can’t we?’

_Can’t they?_

The people waiting in line are looking at their phones, but Guan Shan can’t shake the feeling that they’re looking at him, waiting for an answer. What’s the right one? Is this a test? Will He Cheng still pay him at the end of the week? Guan Shan bites down on the inside of his cheek, and breathes slowly. He meets He Tian’s gaze, dark eyebrows raised.

‘Fine.’

***

‘So your mother’s a nurse now?’ He Tian asks him after their food arrives. They’re sitting across from one another. An artsy-looking girl waiting for a matcha latte and red bean bun is perched on the end of the bench, the bulky rings on her fingers knocking against her phone while she types, but the two men are otherwise alone.

Guan Shan shrugs. ‘She always was. She did the cleanin’ job for some extra cash when the CNO couldn’t give her enough shifts.’

‘Your dad wasn’t around?’

‘No less than yours.’

He Tian smiles while he swallows a morsel of walnut bun, flicks his fingers in Guan Shan’s direction. _Touché._ Over the rim of his teacup, he says eventually, ‘He’s around when he wants to be.’ He takes a sip, shifts his head from side-to-side. ‘Which isn’t often. He stays at the villa on Hainan most of the year and plays at being retired. Honestly, he probably gets golf lessons.’

Guan Shan can picture it: white beaches, a hot sun, the cool breeze rushing through folding glass doors, a pool spilling out onto the sea. He reaches over to fill up He Tian’s tea from a cast iron pot made for two; Guan Shan sticks to coffee, watered-down with soy milk and hazelnut syrup.

He ventures: ‘Your ma…’

‘Is dead, yes. He remarried not long after. I’ve only met the woman twice.’

There are the walnut buns, and also a plate of stuffed lotus root, a smaller dish of sugar cake. Guan Shan is intrigued by both, and can’t decide. He settles for more coffee.

‘My ma doesn’t know I’m workin’ for you,’ he admits, unsure why he’s bothering. ‘I reckon she wouldn’t be too happy if she found out.’

‘Does she know _what_ you do?’

‘I guess, yeah.’

‘Then does the rest matter?’ He Tian asks. ‘The way I see it, she worked for my family first. It would be a bit hypocritical of her to question your chosen breed of employer.’

Guan Shan considers him. ‘You think you’re so different to the rest of us?’

‘Not me. Them. They’re nothing like most people.’

‘Is that why you wanna leave? Why you do the shit you do? The cars, the money… The sex.’

He Tian’s eyes glitter, and Guan Shan wonders if he’s asked the wrong thing. He Tian says, ‘I haven’t psychoanalysed my behaviour all that much, to be honest with you.’

Guan Shan picks up a piece of lotus root with his chopsticks, dips it in soy sauce made sticky with rock sugar. ‘You think you should?’ he asks, before putting it in his mouth whole.

‘I think I definitely shouldn’t,’ says He Tian. ‘Who knows what I’d find.’

***

They finish eating, He Tian drinks the dregs of the teapot, and they walk back out onto the streets which are now busy with people in sportswear and others carrying guitars in battered cases slung on their backs. Guan Shan doesn’t recognise himself in them, which is something he tries to do often, and He Tian doesn’t give him too long to dwell. They window shop for half an hour, killing time until He Tian’s unspecified appointment, and then wander back to the multi-storey parking lot, which still smells and is cold compared to the building warmth on Shanghai’s streets.

He Tian pays the parking ticket, and they drive for twenty minutes to a district on the other side of the city, where the car becomes ostentatious and where half the shops are closed down and the others look like they’ll soon be ready to. Probably, they’ll be bought up in a few months by some Taiwanese tycoon looking to redevelop, pulled down and rebuilt as expensive-looking ‘residential hubs’ advertised on the city billboards. Maybe there’ll be one left—a drab nail house standing with dishevelled pride, the owners of it affecting some kind of self-righteous stubbornness that serves only to make it look more drab, more dishevelled. Would Guan Shan’s mother refuse the offer, kicked out of her home for generous compensation? Guan Shan doesn’t know.

Eventually, on He Tian’s request, Guan Shan stops the car. He pulls up on the kerbside of a shop selling bike parts, with lattice metal covering the windows and obscuring the shop’s insides. The sign above the store is rusted and cracked from sun, blue and white paintwork peeling away. It’s not much to look at. Guan Shan assesses it with a raised brow.

‘Not your usual,’ he says.

He Tian makes a ‘hm’ sound. ‘It’s business for my brother,’ he says, unbuckling his seatbelt. ‘Keep the engine running.’

Guan Shan shrugs in acquiescence while He Tian climbs out the car and walks around to the back of it. He pulls out the box he’d placed in the boot of the car at the estate, and Guan Shan watches curiously as He Tian walks up to the front of the shop, drops the box on the doorstep, and raps his knuckles against a cracked glass pane of the door.

Calmly, he walks back to the car, and lets the door sweep back down in place.

‘Drive up the street a little,’ he says, wearing a strange-looking smile.

Frowning, Guan Shan obliges, rolling the car ahead, engine purring. He notices now how quiet the streets are, oddly devoid of sound. A crow sits on a telephone wire above them. He can see the bike shop in his rearview mirror, and watches as a middle-aged guy in a white vest and grey joggers looks down at the box, and picks it up.

A cigarette dangles between his lips, and his narrowed eyes lift up to roam the street. Guan Shan can see the inky outline of a tattoo etched all the way up his right arm, snaking around his shoulder and beneath his vest, but they’re parked too far away to make out what it is, and besides, what does it matter, because that’s when the shop explodes.

Guan Shan will swear later that he could feel the heat of it from the car fifty metres away. Watching from the mirror turns it into a movie scene. Orange flame bursts from the shop front, a great billow of fire that shatters the glass of all surrounding buildings, wrenching brick and mortar and chunks of metal across to the other side of the street. Car alarms and building security alarms start screaming through the street, and somewhere a dog begins to howl.

Where the man had stood, there is nothing left. Flame engulfs the bike shop; the whole front of it has been reduced to rubble, a skeleton frame of concrete stained black. Through the smoke, Guan Shan can just make out the innards of it like a pried-open ribcage. From another building up the road, a woman stumbles out through the door, and starts to scream. Others join her, shouting and running. A young girl runs towards the shop without any shoes, and an older woman puts an arm around her waist to yank her back.

‘Drive,’ He Tian says.

Guan Shan’s head turns slowly. He stares at He Tian. His ears are ringing faintly. In the distance: the wail of sirens, the screech of car tyres. The police will be here in minutes, and Guan Shan can’t move.

‘Guan Shan,’ He Tian says, and then again, more insistently, _‘Drive.’_

He looks as if he’ll pull Guan Shan out of the car and drive the car off himself by the time Guan Shan eventually pulls away from the kerb. He doesn’t go too fast, as if not to draw attention, but anyone who’s seen the black multi-million-yuan car idling up the street will already know what to tell the police. In the end, Guan Shan knows it won’t matter how fast he drives. There’s no escaping from this. Not for He Tian—and maybe, not for him.

‘Take me back to the estate. My brother will want a report.’

After another minute, Guan Shan nods. He says nothing while He Tian turns the speakers up, and plays a song from his phone, the lyrics sung in English by a male vocalist. The windows go down, cool air whipping around their cheeks when they hit the expressway, and Guan Shan realises he’s shaking. He Tian has an elbow resting on the window, a knuckle drawn between his teeth.

 _Burning bridges light my way,_ the man sings. _Burning bridges light my way…_

***

He Cheng slams a fist down on the kitchen table. ‘How _dare_ you!’ he seethes. ‘Did you listen to _anything_ I fucking said?’

‘You asked me to give them a warning,’ says He Tian, standing nonchalantly on the other side. ‘I gave them one.’

‘You killed three people!’

‘Oh, fuck _off,’_ He Tian snarls. ‘As if you weren’t going to eventually. Your warnings are pathetic. Everyone knows what’s coming. I followed the order you’d have given me in four weeks when the Cáo stopped paying rent again and got another kid shot.’ His voice goes hard, and cold: ‘I took _preventative measures.’_

‘You dishonoured me,’ He Cheng replies quietly. ‘You put yourself and this family in danger.’ He points a finger. ‘You put him in danger—by sheer implication of the fact. There’ll be a price on his head by the end of the night.’

He Tian waves a hand. ‘He’s fine,’ he says tiredly. ‘He can manage himself.’

Guan Shan, standing in the very same place as his first day working for the Hes, has no idea how to respond to that. Should he be inspired by He Tian’s confidence in him? Mostly, he fucking hates him. Not for He Cheng’s reasons—honourable, rooted in saving face and some syndicate code of conduct. He hates He Tian because he hadn’t cared, and still doesn’t. He’s killed three people. His brother is chastising him as if he’s stolen a pair of headphones from an electronics store.

Guan Shan presses his head to the wall, rolls his skull against the brickwork.

‘You’ve started a pointless war with the Cáo,’ says He Cheng. ‘Our PAP contact can’t cover you for this. At least five witnesses.’

If He Tian had planned on saying anything to this, he loses his opportunity—He Cheng’s phone begins to ring. He Cheng answers without looking at the screen; his gaze has not left his brother’s, flint staring into stone. A few seconds pass. The voice on the other end of the line is so quiet that Guan Shan can only hear the quiet buzz of a man’s tenor, words indistinct.

‘Yeah,’ says He Cheng. He glances—once—at Guan Shan, and then he nods. ‘I understand.’ He pulls the phone away from his ear, and holds it out to He Tian, who only takes it after a long, silent exchange with his brother.

He Tian puts the phone to his ear. ‘Hello, Daddy,’ he says blandly. He isn’t smiling; Guan Shan watches as his eyes harden, mouth tightening at the corners. The conversation doesn’t last long. After a minute, he hangs up, smacks the phone back into He Cheng’s waiting hand.

‘Did you tell him?’ is the first thing he says.

‘I didn’t have to.’

He Tian looks away. There is only one window in the kitchen, set over the sink, and the amber light creates soft shadows through the otherwise dark space. Guan Shan can see a muscle jump in He Tian’s jaw.

‘This is punishment,’ He Tian says quietly, ‘not protection.’

‘It isn’t supposed to be for your benefit,’ He Cheng replies.

There’s a thick silence, and Guan Shan clears his throat. He’s tired of the theatrics. ‘Anyone wanna tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on?’

***

They cannot leave; they cannot walk a mile from the main house; they cannot go into the city or to the small market a short drive from the estate. Guan Shan cannot go home, or see his mother, and one of He Cheng’s men will get him anything he needs. When he asks, he’s told there is no timescale on how long this will take—this will just be how it is ‘until it’s over’.

He’s forced to hand in his notice at the dim sum place only after He Cheng puts it to him like this: ‘I’ll pay you extra for the inconvenience of not having your head severed from your shoulders and delivered to your mother’s door in an icebox.’

If nothing else, the experience teaches him this: his own father fucked himself over working for this family—taking their money, following their orders, ignoring what happened through the restaurant’s kitchen doors, putting his foot down when they told him to just fucking _drive_ —and Guan Shan hasn’t learnt from his mistakes.

‘You can’t make me stay here,’ he’d said the day before, the kitchen door at his back, air trapped in his throat. ‘You can’t fuckin’ _keep me here.’_

And He Cheng had said, ‘Then die.’

He Tian stepped towards Guan Shan. ‘You won’t have our protection if you leave.’

 _‘Protection?_ You think I fuckin’ _want_ it?’

‘After today—you’ll need it.’

Guan Shan put both hands up. ‘I quit. I’m out. Fuck all of you.’

‘Resignation accepted,’ said He Cheng. ‘When it’s time.’

Now, Guan Shan rocks a knife steadily against a wooden board, spring onions cut to fine rings, a piled-high dish of minced garlic set to one side and making his nose sting. The knife is sharp; the board is old and well-treated. At home, his kitchen is too small for making big meals, let alone cooking for anyone on the estate who might be hungry. He catches his head on open cupboards and there’s no room on the burner for anything other than the wok. _It encourages creativity,_ his mother likes to say, a bright perspective he finds himself struggling with.

Here, he could make a banquet, and the size of the pantry hints to a time where that would have happened often, a house brought to fullness, a home lived in rather than occupied. Now, the place is a fortress, He Cheng its lone sentry. There’s his henchman for company, the staff who cut the grass twice a day and wax the floorboards of rooms no one seems to use, and then there are the nameless men and women who patrol the grounds on a near-obsessive basis, but Guan Shan does well to ignore them. The place is an expensive machine to keep running each day, and yet still Guan Shan doesn’t quite know what He Cheng _does._

 _Drugs,_ he thinks, scraping the mound of chopped onions onto a dish. He reaches for a huge bunch of _yau choy_ , the leaves damp with beads of water, and sets to shredding it. _Guns, maybe. Not that I’ve seen any. Maybe they’re in trafficking._

‘Looks good.’

Guan Shan lifts his head. ‘You’ve never seen a vegetable in your miserable fuckin’ life?’

He Tian smiles. ‘You’re still angry. I deserve that.’

A wooden kitchen island separates them. Briefly, Guan Shan considers throwing the cleaver at He Tian’s head. He looks down, keeps the blade steady, continues shredding even-sized strips.

‘You’ve got no fuckin’ idea,’ Guan Shan says.

‘Maybe not. I am sorry for it. I feel bad.’

Guan Shan’s eyes flick up. ‘Don’t talk to me.’

He Tian sighs, and he presses his hands onto the wooden surface of the island and leans into his palms. The veins on the backs are risen and dark blue, his fingers long. Yesterday, those hands carried a bomb like it was a birthday cake.

For a while, there’s silence, only the steady sound of the knife cutting through green stems. When Guan Shan is finished, he sets them aside, and reaches for a small wooden crate of chestnut mushrooms that have started to dry out, the caps starting to shrivel like a scrunched-up ball of paper.

‘Can I help?’

‘No.’

He Tian nods, and clears his throat. He shifts his weight from side-to-side. Eventually, he straightens. ‘My mother used to like it in here,’ he decides to say. ‘We had a chef, but she liked cooking when she had time. She’d burn most of what she baked, and salted things to shit.’

 _It’s not hard to cook well,_ Guan Shan almost says, and then—doesn’t. It’s a nasty territory he doesn’t want to encroach on. This talk of mothers—Guan Shan doesn’t know why He Tian likes to indulge in it. Perhaps it’s sentiment. Perhaps it’s a safety net. Perhaps—and Guan Shan suspects this is the case for this particular moment—it’s a peace offering.

He lays down the cleaver, and it rolls slightly on its handle, then stills.

‘I hope you eat shit,’ he says honestly. ‘I’m not gonna spit in the food, but I wanna.’

He Tian scratches the back of his neck. ‘I thought you’d understand. Why I did it.’

‘I don’t care about why—I just know you could’ve done it without me.’

‘I don’t think so.’ He Tian snags a pinch of cut spring onions, and brings them to his mouth. He chews, and pulls a face. ‘They want me to follow orders on their terms, or not at all. I’m so tired of all this shit.’

‘You’re rich. You have a mansion and two cars that cost more money than I’m ever gonna see in my life. _You’re_ tired?’

‘You don’t want to listen to anything I say, do you?’

Guan Shan picks up the knife again, slices haphazardly into a mushroom cup. ‘You’re the one that walked in here.’

He Tian grimaces, as if Guan Shan’s insulted him. ‘I just—wanted it to stop. I just wanted a job done—no fucking about.’

‘So you could go back to fuckin’ your way through Shanghai’s brood of socialites?’

‘Look, I don’t know what else to do. It’s one of the only things I’m good at.’

Guan Shan stares at him. ‘That’s a fuckin’ lie. We went to school together, remember? You were smart as fuck.’

‘I remembered things by rote for tests and my brother paid my teachers off when they didn’t give me a grade over ninety. I wasn’t _smart_.’

Guan Shan doesn’t know if he’s telling the truth, or if it’s an embellished tale of self-deprecation. He didn’t know He Tian well, but he remembers He Tian’s name at the top of the scoreboards; his hand, quick to rise, in the scant few classes they happened to share towards the end of middle school. _Very good, He Tian,_ the teachers would say, with a peculiar smile. _The rest of you—pay attention. You could learn a thing or two._

What does He Tian have to teach that’s worth learning?

‘If you want nothin’ to do with this place,’ Guan Shan asks wearily, ‘then why the fuck are you still here?’

‘I can’t leave.’

‘Uh, yeah you can. I literally offered to help you. Stupidest fuckin’ decision I’ve ever made.’

‘Didn’t you hear He Cheng yesterday? My father probably knew what I’d done before you even pulled the car away. He has people everywhere.’ His voice lowers: ‘I wouldn’t get far. You’d be in the shit for it, too.’

Guan Shan’s eyebrows lift. ‘Oh, you mean like the thing you did yesterday? Why didn’t you just stick my head down the fuckin’ toilet like someone with a bit of fuckin’ class?’

‘You’d stain the car seats.’

The comment is so glib, so quick, that Guan Shan laughs—it’s a short, hollow ‘ha!’ sound that startles him. He Tian leans back, eyes glittering. He looks like he’s won something. _Very good, He Tian._ Beneath it, Guan Shan feels a pinched feeling in his chest. He puts his hand to his collarbones and rubs with the heel.

‘How long will dinner be?’ He Tian asks.

Dinner. Right. Guan Shan looks down at the ingredients laid out before him. There is tofu marinating in the fridge, rice cooked and staying warm in the rice-cooker. Suddenly, he’s famished. He Tian’s significance in the kitchen, standing right before him, dwindles to nothing. For now, so does his anger.

‘Half an hour,’ Guan Shan says, after a small, inward sigh. ‘There’ll be enough for ten—maybe twelve. You should get here before all the tofu’s gone if you want some.’

He Tian shrugs. ‘I’m happy to wait.’

He Tian stands there for half an hour, says little, and watches. The silence is companionable; Guan Shan’s audience-of-one is attentive and appreciative of his culinary efforts. He has never felt so self-conscious under the weight of another’s gaze, and he serves the meal up into various bowls and plates with a degree of nervousness.

They eat: He Cheng and Qiu join them, along with three women from the security team who talk and laugh loudly. Leftovers sit on the counter for anyone who happens to drift past throughout the evening. The clatter of chopsticks and ceramic bowls echoes off the stone kitchen walls, and more than once He Tian catches Guan Shan’s eye across the table.

***

He Tian gives him the news one evening after dinner. Guan Shan has retreated back to his own room, and he’s talking to his mother on the phone.

‘Yeah, I’m still here,’ he tells her.

‘It’s been two _weeks_ , Ah-Shan.’

‘I know, Ma. We’re just—hangin’ out. It’s easier for work and they’re goin’ through a rough time. It’s not forever.’

‘You must really like them. You usually can’t stand people for this long.’

Guan Shan bites his tongue. ‘Not true. I like hangin’ out with you.’

She finds this funny. ‘I’m your mother, and you live with me. You _have_ to.’

He Tian appears in the doorway of his bedroom, lingering, and Guan Shan nods. He says goodbye to his mother, and slides the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. It’s still early; his ma has just gotten home from a night shift, and it’s strange still for Guan Shan not to hear her get in, the thunk of her lanyard on the kitchen counter, the flick of the kettle, her slippers on the floor.

The room the Hes have given him is bigger than his apartment, a guest room furnished in cherrywood in the west wing. It has an oversized ensuite and looks out onto a lake which is home to a paddle of waterfowl, and Guan Shan sleeps better than he thinks he should. Somehow, it feels like a betrayal.

He looks at He Tian now, expectant. ‘Somethin’ wrong?’

He Tian hesitates. ‘There’s been a delivery. Downstairs.’ Not understanding, Guan Shan says nothing until He Tian adds, ‘It’s from them.’

Guan Shan sits up. ‘What did they send?’

‘They have one of my brother’s men. We got his hand. Unattached to the rest of him, to be precise.’

‘In an icebox?’

He Tian smiles. He has his hand on the door handle, and twists it down, then up again. ‘You’ve been thinking too much about what He Cheng said.’

‘It’s a bit hard not to.’ Guan Shan pulls his legs over the side of the bed and presses his feet firmly against the floorboards. He runs both hands through his hair, and breathes out slowly. ‘Shit… How long’s this gonna go on for? Seriously?’

‘He Cheng’s getting ready to run the Cào out. It won’t take long—he’s done this before. I guess this is the first time I’m actually responsible for it.’

‘Yeah? How’s that sittin’ with you?’

‘Ah, don’t ask me the hard questions, Mo Guan Shan.’

Guan Shan’s lips quirk, but he has a hand bunched into the sheets of his made bed. Three killed, and another of their own stuck somewhere without a hand. Maybe he’s already dead. Guan Shan hopes so. He doesn’t want to be here anymore. Two weeks, and he’s starting to forget the bomb, the people He Tian has killed, the blood the family has spilled. The house and the people in it make it easy to do.

He Cheng makes sure that he wants for nothing, and the kitchen and gardens are his to use as he pleases. He Tian keeps to himself, for the most part, but Guan Shan sees him for dinner and at various points throughout the day. More than once, they have tea on the veranda when the weather is warm, and on these occasions Guan Shan pretends that He Tian hasn’t deliberately sought him out. They talk cars in the garage, a concrete outhouse with a net worth that makes Guan Shan’s eyes water; walk the grounds with one of the estate’s dogs at their heels, a huge German shepherd that roams about with a stick in its mouth; and one day He Tian shows Guan Shan where his mother is buried.

 _Actually responsible,_ He Tian says, and Guan Shan wonders now if he’s blamed himself for something else in the past.

‘I feel sorry for you,’ Guan Shan says, still sitting on the bed. ‘In a lotta ways.’

He Tian smiles. His eyes pinch tightly at the corners. ‘My brother really picked a winner, didn’t he?’

‘He told me he hired me ‘cause I wouldn’t fall in love with you.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Like you’ve had problems with that in the past.’

He Tian welcomes himself into the room, and perches on the edge of the dresser. ‘Once or twice,’ he says. ‘I guess they fell for my irresistible charm.’

‘Irresistible?’

A long glance. ‘Mostly irresistible.’

‘You tried to fuck them so they’d get fired, right?’

He Tian scoffs. Behind him, he’s drumming his fingers against the desk. ‘Does that sound like me?’

‘Yeah, it does. Just wonderin’ why you haven’t done the same with me. Unless you’re a girls-only guy.’

‘I’m not, obviously.’ The denial is quick and resolute, and it sets Guan Shan on edge. He sits up straighter. He hadn’t found it obvious at all. What was obvious about it? He swallows, and He Tian says, ‘You think I didn’t try?’

‘To fuck me or fire me?’

The drumming stops. ‘Do you want me to answer that?’

‘You took me to breakfast.’

‘I did.’

Time softens, and the room is darker. It’s a cloudy night, no breeze; no moonlight, either, so if He Tian shuts the door—which he does—there will be no way of distinguishing each other’s features. Not to begin with. He Tian waits while Guan Shan goes to the bathroom, returns, and when He Tian is close enough, and the warm dryness of his palm settles on the side of Guan Shan’s neck, Guan Shan’s eyes have adjusted enough for him to make out the slim curve of He Tian’s mouth.

Guan Shan’s clothes smell of the stew he’d cooked for everyone that evening; He Tian’s smell of cigarettes and sweat and his lemon-scented deodorant. Both are disposed of quickly and pool on the floor at the foot of Guan Shan’s bed, and Guan Shan marvels at the strength in He Tian’s shoulders. His heart goes to his throat as He Tian lifts him at the waist and drops him back against the mattress. His head bounces against the pillows. His cock, which has been hard since He Tian let himself into the room, hits the shallow dip of his abdomen.

‘I haven’t done this in a while,’ he murmurs.

‘I don’t mind.’

He Tian has crawled on top of him. He has his nose against Guan Shan’s throat, the fingers of one hand threaded through Guan Shan’s hair. This is sensory for him. He acts like he’s drunk.

‘This is a pity fuck,’ Guan Shan makes himself say. ‘Nothin’ else.’

‘I don’t mind.’

Guan Shan tells himself this as He Tian crawls his way down his body, his hot breath whispering against Guan Shan’s flesh. He’s goosebumps, all over. He can’t hear himself breathe. He can hear He Tian talking, murmuring senseless things into the jut of his pelvis.

To the ceiling, Guan Shan says, ‘Are you talkin’ to my cock?’

‘We’re establishing a few things,’ says He Tian. He makes a tentative lick of his tongue, and Guan Shan shudders, sparks like a Catherine wheel spinning rogue through each limb.

‘Yeah?’ he asks shakily. ‘What kinda things?’

‘Deeply intimate things. They might spook you.’

‘I’m not fragile.’

‘I see that.’

They stop talking after that. He Tian commits himself to coaxing an orgasm from between Guan Shan’s thighs, and Guan Shan shuts his eyes tight enough that he can see the dark red flare of his blood vessels on the backs of his eyelids. He can hear He Tian’s mouth on his skin, the wet rasp of his tongue. He can hear his own breath, shuddering, catching on a moan like a kite thrown in the wind.

He clenches his thighs hard enough that they tremble and ache, and his hands grab the bedsheets like digging for a fistful of sand that runs through his fingers. He thinks about touching He Tian’s hair. Everything narrows down minutely to the heat of He Tian’s mouth. It feels as if he’s in a bath, the water no warmer than his skin, and he’s floating. The water laps shallowly around his ears, a tender sound.

There’s a thread between them, something thin and tenuous, like a string of spit between two parting mouths. It breaks when Guan Shan comes, snaps back to him like whiplash.

He Tian pulls off him.

His mouth is curved in pleasure, and he wipes it with the back of his hand.

‘God,’ Guan Shan mutters. He pushes himself up onto his elbows. His thighs are still trembling, and he rolls his ankles. ‘You fuckin’ love control, don’t you?’

He Tian sits back on his haunches. ‘Have you seen my family?’

‘I don’t wanna talk about your family right now.’ Guan Shan huffs. ‘Bet you can’t fuckin’ stand that I have to drive you about, right?’

‘I got used to it. It’s a shame the car isn’t a manual. I’ve enjoyed seeing your hand around the gear stick.’

‘You’re a sick bastard.’

‘I’m horny,’ says He Tian, ‘and you’re naked.’

‘And you're hard.’

‘Well-noticed. I think this makes us even.’

 _How?_ Guan Shan almost asks, but He Tian is already crowding close, and his skin is hot. Guan Shan almost fears it—almost rears back from it. This is only pity, he reminds himself. He Tian’s eagerness is something to be laughed at, and in the morning Guan Shan will wash away the night and make himself breakfast, and it’ll all be over.

For now, he lets He Tian press their hips together, hears the cap popping on a bottle of lube and the tear of a condom packet that gets thrown somewhere to the floor with their clothes. They didn’t, actually, agree that it would be like this: Guan Shan on his back, legs hooked over He Tian’s shoulders, He Tian sliding into him after the tentative press of his fingers, staring eye-to-eye.

He Tian pushes in to fullness. The air is cut off from Guan Shan’s throat, and he makes a noise like he’s choking. He Tian shifts back, then does it again.

‘Yeah?’ He Tian says, grinning at the sounds that Guan Shan is making.

‘Shut— _up.’_

He Tian shrugs, and continues fucking him until his back arches off the mattress and sweat runs down the backs of his thighs.

He Tian fucks the way he kills: without concern, without hesitation, with a peculiar smile that Guan Shan can’t fully see in the dark. He’s glad of it. It makes it easy to be aware of the fact that He Tian is inside of him when he doesn’t have to acknowledge that he’s a killer from a bloodline of killers. He Tian’s hands dig into Guan Shan’s hips, thumbs pressing just below his hip bones, hard enough to hurt. If Guan Shan took He Tian’s fingers into his mouth, would they taste of copper and cordite?

Guan Shan closes his eyes. He Tian is breathing out shallowly through his mouth. Guan Shan’s toes have curled, and his legs are starting to burn.

Eventually: ‘I’m going to—’

‘Yeah.’

He Tian shudders over him, bows at the waist so the dark tendrils of his hair just scrape the jut of Guan Shan’s collarbones, his nipples. He Tian presses a kiss to Guan Shan’s rib cage, penitent. Guan Shan can't see his expression. His legs fall from He Tian’s shoulders, and He Tian rolls onto his back at his side, spent. His chest rises and falls, solid and strong. He throws an arm over his eyes and heaves a breath like a sigh.

Guan Shan presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth. ‘Is your brother gonna know?’

‘Knowing him, he already does.’ He Tian glances at him, lifting his arm. ‘What does it matter, anyway? You handed in your _resignation_ or whatever.’

‘Counts for shit, though.’

‘So what? You’re not driving me, but I think you’ve done pretty well for yourself out of this situation.’

‘Are you sayin’ I’m takin’ advantage—’

‘It was a joke,’ He Tian cuts in. He nudges Guan Shan, who’s gone still. ‘I just fucked you and you’re still so tight.’

‘You’re gross,’ he says, and then: ‘I’ve wanted to quit for a while. Even before.’

He Tian looks at him. The sheets rustle as he turns on his side. ‘Why is that?’

‘Because my ma worked for you—and so did my dad. I knew what I’d be signin’ up for before I met with your brother the first time, but I didn’t… I guess I didn’t want to end up like my dad, and leave her alone.’

‘We’d protect you.’

‘Is that what this is?’ Guan Shan asks quietly. ‘Protection?’

_My dad got fucked over—is this just another way of fucking me over, too?_

‘This?’ He Tian counters. In the space between them, he’s drawing something into the sheets with his fingertip. ‘Huh. I thought this was pity.’

***

He Tian doesn’t wake when Guan Shan leaves. He sleeps all through Guan Shan’s silent dressing, and Guan Shan makes no sound as he slips through the door and lets it click shut behind him. There are people patrolling the grounds outside, cameras watching perpetually for intruders—or runaways. Guan Shan has been here enough now, and consistently for over two weeks, so he knows how to stay hidden.

There are birds chirping, dawn on the approach, and Guan Shan’s eyes are heavy and sore with no sleep. A bat flits overheard as he darts between the house and the garage, its black body silent and quick.

He doesn’t know where He Tian’s last car went—torched, probably, to some smouldering skeleton of metal and ash on the other side of the mountain—but he knows where the keys are kept to the rest. Guan Shan will realise later that he should’ve picked something less like He Tian, but instead he swipes the keys of a red, manual-drive Ferrari, the paintwork almost black in the darkness.

What drives him now is this: he needs to leave. The sheets smell too much like what they’d done, and a single moment longer and he’s going to be sick from it like a too-strong perfume left to soak on his skin and stain. No—he needs to leave, and he needs to go home. He needs the shower that he’s too tall to fit under and the kitchen that needs resealing around the counters; and he needs a bedroom he can touch with his fingertips from wall-to-wall. Enough space, just for himself. No exceptions. No uninvited guests who shift close to him after sex and murmur, ‘I think I feel closer to you than I’ve done with anyone for a while,’ and then ask: ‘Is that weird?’

At the gates, Guan Shan puts a hand out the window sill, and waves it. He holds his breath. After a minute, the gates open. They must recognise the car, which means it must be He Cheng’s. He rolls out fast through the pillars, doesn’t spare a glance at the gatehouse. They’ll know, soon enough, that Guan Shan has left. He spares a brief moment of remorse; probably, the gatekeeper will lose their job by dawn.

He drives in silence. It’s a steady, two-mile-long decline, narrow and winding down to the road, and his ears will pop soon with the shift in altitude. There are no lights, no signs for the car’s headlights to reflect against. It’s so quiet. He can barely feel the crunch of gravel beneath the tyres.

He’s thinking about how much he wants a shower when the car appears behind him. He’s thinking about what he’d said—about control—when its headlights bore through the rear windscreen, blinding in the mirrors.

‘Shit,’ Guan Shan mutters, easing his foot down on the accelerator.

The car has its lights on full-beam, and Guan Shan can’t see what kind of car it is. He can’t see anything but the perpetual lights, and how they aren’t getting further away. It’s keeping pace with him. No—it’s getting closer. He Cheng, coming to reprimand him? He Tian, coming to drag him back?

Guan Shan’s hands white-knuckle around the steering wheel. The leather creaks. He knows the drive down from the mountain well, but he always takes it slow. He Cheng paid him to get He Tian home safe, not fast. It was clear from the beginning: if anything happened to He Tian, it would be more than Guan Shan’s job on the line.

‘Just—fuckin’ let me go,’ he says out loud, frustrated. When the car gains another metre, he thinks about stopping the car entirely—leaving the keys in the engine, and running the rest of the way down. Testing, he touches on the brakes.

It’s the wrong thing to do.

The car smashes straight into the back of the Ferrari. Guan Shan’s thrown forward, and there’s an awful crunching sound of metal wrapping around itself and absorbing the damage.

‘Oh, fuck,’ Guan Shan whispers. It isn’t one of the brothers—it’s the Cáo, and they’ve been waiting.

Guan Shan slams down his foot on the accelerator. The rear wheels skid against the gravel, taking too long to find traction. Guan Shan swears and jerks down the handbrake, revving the engine. Dust and dirt billow around him, red-lit by the car lights like dust. Burnt rubber chokes the air. The car is closer again, nearly colliding with him, when Guan Shan shoves down the handbrake and the Ferrari shoots off further down the road.

He drives as fast as he can, breathing out a gasp of relief when the car’s headlights grow smaller. He swerves around a bend, and they disappear entirely.

‘Take that, fucker,’ he mutters, but he doesn’t ease up. He can still hear its engine. His heart is in his throat like he’s swallowed the pit of stone fruit, lodged in his oesophagus. He glances at his phone on the passenger seat, vibrating quietly with a call, and ignores it. The speed scares him, his tyres inches from the edge, barely visible until he’s half-ready to tip the car over the edge, but the car is built for this, and he gives himself over to the mechanics of it.

Ahead, there’s a hairpin turn for which he used to slow down to a crawl. He Tian would laugh at him for it, the first few times. There’s no time for it now. Guan Shan steels himself for the turn with He Tian’s smooth laughter bringing goosebumps to the back of his neck. Twenty metres, and he can make the turn. He wraps his fingers around the handbrake, holds it tight.

‘Ten, nine, eight…’ Guan Shan sucks in a breath, thumbs down the button on the handbrake, grips the wheel tight—and twists.

Three things happen at once.

First, Guan Shan is blinded from the headlights that blare straight through the windscreen from the car idling around the corner. It isn’t moving, which means—second—that Guan Shan has to force the car to a shuddering, jerky stop before he hits it.

A beat of silence, Guan Shan’s breaths ripping through his lungs, and his heart sinks down to his stomach as—third and final—the car from before appears in his rearview mirror.

Guan Shan puts his head on the wheel. There’s nowhere for him to go.

Idling engines rumble, and everything is harsh lines and solid flares of light like Guan Shan is in the middle of some lurid art installation, staring up at the overhead lights. It feels nothing like the movies. It feels like he’s going to die.

He waits for a car door to open—for someone to get out and tap on his window and jab the muzzle of a gun beneath his jawline until his bruises—until it doesn’t matter. But nothing happens.

Guan Shan hesitates. Is there an etiquette for this? Is he supposed to be following some kind of Triad bullshit, giving himself up out of honour and a sense of duty? He feels nothing. This is He Tian’s shit, not his. His hands are so fucking hot, veins popping out the skin like ridges on a textured map.

He sits, and does nothing. His phone is still ringing. He Tian’s name flashes on the screen, then disappears. Five missed calls.

‘Come on,’ Guan Shan says. His foot shakes, jostling his knee. He smacks his hands against the steering wheel. _‘Come on, you motherfuckin’ finger-cuttin’ fucks!’_

He doesn’t know if they heard him, saw him scream, flecks of spit landing on the inside of the windscreen, but it starts something. Slowly, the cars start to roll forward, and Guan Shan realises with clarity what’s going to happen.

Guan Shan’s hands fall from the steering wheel. He reaches for the phone, taps the green button, and lifts it to his ear.

‘—not fucking picking up, he’s… Guan Shan? Mo Guan Shan? Are you there? Hello?’

‘Yeah,’ Guan Shan raps. The headlights are getting closer. He has ten seconds, maybe less. He can see the whole interior of the Ferrari. He can see the blue veins against his wrists. ‘Yeah, it’s me—’

‘Guan Shan, you have to come back. You need to listen to me—’

Guan Shan had dressed in the dark, and realises now that he’s wearing He Tian’s jeans. They’re going to be a bitch to clean.

‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’m comin’ back. I made a mistake.’

_‘Guan Shan—’_

The engines are revving now, a deafening roar. They drown He Tian out, and Guan Shan forces himself to relax. _We don’t break as much when we don’t see it coming_ , his ma has told him before. He remembers it now, hates the clarity of it, as if she’s sitting in the passenger seat.

He ends the call.

The cars hit him.

They clip him on each corner, an exact science. The Ferrari is propelled off the edge of the road, and Guan Shan’s stomach drops out from beneath him. A moment of silence, as if time has frozen. His car is on its side, suspended in the air for a second that feels longer, and Guan Shan swears he can see the stars through his window. His body lifts up in the seat, nauseatingly weightless; he feels the cross-body seatbelt biting into his collarbones.

And then the car drops.

Rolls.

A booming crash.

His head smashing into the window—and then black.

***

He Tian finds him four hours later—maybe five. The details are still hazy as he sits in his mother’s apartment and lets her press ice packs everywhere. Somehow, he’s still alive. Somehow, he’s barely broken.

‘You shouldn’t be,’ He Tian keeps saying, staring at him for long periods of time with even longer periods of silence. Periodically, he reaches out a hand, presses the tips of his fingers to Guan Shan’s shoulder, and then lets it drop, his reality confirmed and solid.

He can’t remember how long it took for them to pull him from the wreckage. The car had brought down a few ginkgo trees before wrapping itself around a lone redwood; snapped-off twigs and the glass from the windscreen tearing Guan Shan’s skin to shallow ribbons, and his mother isn’t sure about scarring. His collarbone is broken, and there’s bruising from the seatbelts—most everywhere else, too, but he hasn’t had a good look at himself yet. His face is puffy, everything swollen and yellowish.

‘Black and blue tomorrow,’ his mother mutters, grabbing her medical kit from He Cheng’s hands without thanks. She’s ornery from disrupted sleep on her day off, and she’s scared. One look at him in the doorway, the He brothers holding him up, and she’d looked ready to scream. Now, she turns her nose up at He Tian, who stinks of cigarettes and stale panic-sweat, and He Cheng, who looks too much like his father.

She does her best with him while he sits on one of their fold-up kitchen chairs that groans like stiff bones, sore with age and getting thrown off a mountainside, and has to breathe deeply at the kitchen sink more than twice. When He Cheng offers her a glass of water, she looks at him so darkly that he goes to stand uneasily by the apartment door. Unable to leave, too discomfited to come closer.

Later, they’ll laugh at it. It’s funny. He Cheng: bested by a nurse in penguin-print pyjamas and a long grey cardigan that has holes in the cuffs and a toothpaste stain down the lapel.

The thing is—he’s alive. She has to know nothing more. But the truth is also plain: his late-night disappearances, his pre-dawn starts, his two-week-long absence—it was all a lie. It was a vague truth unembellished, like a photo frame still holding the stock photo. _Good, honest work,_ she’d said. And he’d let her think it.

‘Whiplash,’ she announces. The sun is sharp and gold through the balcony door, and Guan Shan winces at it. ‘You’ll need a neck brace for a while. Unsure on the concussion. I’ll have to call out of work and watch over you.’

He Tian steps forward. ‘Auntie, I can—’

‘Wu Mei can fill in for me,’ she continues over him, zipping up her bag. ‘She owes me one or two.’ She points a finger at Guan Shan. ‘Do you _know_ how many times her ex has left her with the kid, _hè?_ ’

Guan Shan doesn’t reply, content to let her rambl and numb with aching. He Tian is staring at him again, and Guan Shan feels it like an added pressure on his skin when his mother leaves to put away her bag, her slippers smacking against the linoleum.

‘You left,’ says He Tian quietly. Probably, everyone in the apartment can hear him.

Guan Shan sucks air through his teeth. His words come out mumbled, like he’s been chewing on an ice cube and his mouth has gone numb. ‘I didn’t know where else to go.’

‘Right where you were. You could have stayed right there.’

‘You would’ve told me to leave eventually. I was just bringin’ about the inevitable. Y’know. That thing you like to do. Like droppin’ a bomb on someone’s doorstep.’

To his credit, it makes He Tian wince. Is Guan Shan a bad person because that spot of pain makes him feel good? Does it show that He Tian is capable of feeling remorse, or just that he doesn't like it when Guan Shan holds up a mirror to him and tilts it so the sun reflects burningly onto him just-so? Guan Shan isn’t going to think about it. His mother is coming back into the kitchen.

‘You need to leave now,’ she says firmly. ‘You’ve done enough—you and your brother.’

Guan Shan grimaces. ‘Ma, it wasn’t—’

‘I don’t care. I care that you look like you’ve fallen down the forty floors of this tower and somehow you’re still alive. I find it hard to believe you owe them for it.’

Next to He Tian, she looks small. Guan Shan doesn’t tell her this. Nor does he acknowledge how fucking much He Tian fills the space he grew up in, some hulking thing with shoulders that are too broad and limbs that never seemed to stop growing. He Tian had looked small in his bed last night, wound up tight and careful like a poorly wrapped present. A moment of mishandling and he would unravel all night.

Guan Shan jerks his head in He Tian’s direction, and winces. A hot strip of fire runs down the back of his neck, immobilising him for a few moments. His mother watches him, pained and tired-looking. When it passes he says, ‘Where are you goin’?’

He Tian says nothing, which is fine. Guan Shan already knows.

‘Don’t go,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Let your brother do it.’

‘You know I can’t. Not after this.’ He Tian smiles at him as if he doesn’t care that Guan Shan’s mother is watching. ‘I wouldn’t want to delay the inevitable.’

***

The Hes win; the Cáo are slaughtered against the mortar of their already-desecrated turf. The victory was predestined, the war a kind that the Hes have endured and quashed for decades or centuries, a Groundhog Day of severed heads and mutilated tracheae and bodies with no dental records.

Guan Shan watches it on the news: the last, smoldering remains of the building He Tian had ruined weeks before, now a pile of ashen rubble, a job they’d come back to finish. Guan Shan can see the smoke from his window. He Tian calls him, after. He’s ruptured an eardrum and lost the hearing in his left ear—permanency unknown—and there’s a bullet in his right calf that will heal over eventually, leaving a knot of ovoid scar tissue in his leg.

‘You should’ve stayed put,’ Guan Shan tells him in the close darkness of his bedroom. He’s on his side, facing the wall, his cheek mashed into a pillow. The neck brace his mother has fashioned for him is stiff and cuts into his skin. He has the window open; there’s no breeze. Each breath seems to demand more effort than it should.

He Tian’s voice is frighteningly quiet on the end of the line.

‘I wish you would have, too.’

Guan Shan’s heart thuds. He runs his tongue over his teeth. ‘Don’t. You didn’t do it ‘cause of me.’

‘Part of me didn’t—part of me did. I liked that part, honestly. I get why He Cheng does it—he thinks it’s protecting me. It gives you kind of a high.’

Guan Shan sniffs. Thickly, he says, ‘You’ll crash soon.’

‘Eh,’ says He Tian, and Guan Shan pictures him shrugging. Is he in a hospital, swallowing down the bullet-induced nausea? Is he home already? Is he watching the dwindling remnants of his handiwork with Qiu and He Cheng from somewhere high up in the city?

‘I’m not comin’ back,’ Guan Shan tells him.

‘I thought that would be the case.’

‘It’s just—gettin’ behind a wheel again—the look on my ma’s face—’

‘You don’t have to explain.’

‘Kinda feel like I do. You fucked me and I ran—who looks bad now?’

‘Me,’ says He Tian. ‘Always me. Trust me.’

Guan Shan turns his face fully into the pillow, air cut off. The motion hurts—the bruising on his face protests, and so does everything else. Guan Shan holds it. He can hear his mother moving out in the kitchen.

Eventually, he turns back. ‘I wish we could’ve met under, like, different circumstances. When we were younger. Things could’ve been different.’

‘I don’t,’ He Tian says. ‘I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. You win some, you lose some.’

Guan Shan swallows this for a minute before replying. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess so.’

***

**Six months later.**

He gets a job in a table-service café on the outskirts of the People’s Square. They charge tourist prices, so the pay is decent, and the hours are mostly sociable. His manager doesn’t mind his look or his quietness; he’s sure she must be attributing to something, and he blends in well with the young, artsy groups that come in after a wander around the nearby museum.

He’s three months into the job when he sees them. Through the huge café windows, the winter sky is dark and threatening rain, and the swinging door lets in a routine gust of icy air as customers come and go. They’re sitting in his area, and they’ve already helped themselves to the complimentary green tea on the table. They get interesting people through the doors, some of the time, which comes with the territory of operating a stone’s throw from the city’s major theatres and museums, but even his manager has her eye on this trio.

The men fill the seats, make the café smaller by default of their sheer size, and a lump forms in the base of Guan Shan’s throat when he hears his laughter—easy and smooth as skimming a pebble across water. It’s been months since he heard it, but Guan Shan thinks it could’ve been decades and he’d still know it anywhere.

‘Hey,’ he says, pulling the tablet from his apron, cradling it in his hands. He’s grateful for having something to do with them. He half expects the men to sit there, and order nothing, and leave when they’ve drunk their way through the hot tea to chase away the wintry chill—but He Tian looks over at him.

‘We’ll have coffee,’ he says, unwrapping the scarf from around his throat, ‘and whatever you’d recommend from the menu.’

An easy order: Guan Shan puts it through, and leaves to put it together behind the counter. Scooping ground coffee into the machine, the rich smell of it like cigarettes, he’s struck by He Tian’s confidence, by the black cloth of his suit and his winter coat. He looks no different to his brother, but it’s more than that. He looks confident, and invulnerable, and Guan Shan supposes that he feels happy for him, in a strange sort of way.

He gets them the sandwich of the day: twice-cooked pork _gua bao_ with chilli jam from Sichuan, and a side of salty-sweet pickled cucumber. He adds a plate of vegetable dumplings, free of charge. He doesn’t look up until the coffees are poured, and there are patterns swirled into the milk foam.

It catches in his throat like a half-chewed piece of apple. He puts the tray down, and the mugs tremble. The coffees threaten to spill over the edge of their cups, and he reaches for a clean cloth to wring around his knuckles in tight bounds. He isn’t sure why he does it.

Still, he meets He Tian’s gaze. It has the weight of a stare that’s been held for some time. Qiu and He Cheng are talking around him, and his attention falls on Guan Shan. Suddenly, they’re back in the kitchen at the estate, sharing a meal Guan Shan has cooked while He Tian watches, sharing short, meaningless glances at each other across the table. Guan Shan realises, swallowing, that he misses it.

A few minutes pass, and then it seems neither of them can help it: across the floor of the café, they both begin to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> The song He Tian plays in the car is 'Reminder' by Moderat.
> 
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